No Line For Beer:This reminds me of my experience buy The Muppets on Blu-Ray. I bought the package with the digital copy included and after six hours of fighting the DRM to play the damn thing on my Video player, I just downloaded it illegally. Next time I want a Disney film perhaps I'll just skip the part where I give them money.

DRM should never interfere with the paying customer.

The problem being it nearly always does - except for games that are crap that you never want to play again in the future. DRM is over 90% of the problems installing and playing old games on a new operating system (this is probably why GOG works so well - if you can strip the DRM out, the vast majority of compatability issues go away just by that one step alone. Steam I can live with just because it is massively in their financial interest to ensure things keep working on all new systems.

Dinjiin:Fluorescent Testicle: but I'll be spending my money on a used copy of SimCity 2000 instead, I think.

Hope you still have a floppy drive - my copy of SC2K comes on two 3.5in floppies.

Mine came on a CD. I think it was a special multi-media edition, it was part of a software bundle that came with the first CD-ROM drive we got. I think it came with speakers and a sound card too, which was pretty damn exciting in the 386 days.

Special J:jso2897: Agreed. The auction house is my other big problem with that game. Drops for your level were crap, but there was great stuff to be had for just a few gold. One of the best parts: loot farming got reduced to simply gold farming. Even the loot you find was more useful to you being sold for gold to buy something that was actually good. And then there's Blizzard's motive for crappy drops: RMT.

The auction house doesn't bug me that much. My way of playing Diablo (1, 2 and 3) has always revolved around evolving play strategies that don't depend on gear and stats, at least as much as that's possible. Most of my toons are glass cannons or other compromised builds that have to duck, dodge, run, hide, parry, and play tricks to win. It makes it more fun for me, and has made the crappy drop system less of an issue for me. It's also good because it saves me the trouble of learning a lot of stuff, and I am intellectually lazy.I've seen a lot of videos of guys who build these incredible characters that just walk right through the opposition - and playing with them looks deadly dull, to me. And since I rarely play multiplayer, I have no one to impress with my bad-ass toon if I built one anyway.

I'm trapped in tutorial hell now. I was able to finish it three times but each time I went to exit it lost sync with the servers and didn't save my progress. Now whenever I go back in it makes me do the tutorial again and again and again. Yep saving games in "the cloud" sure makes a shiat ton of sense.

Yes, as long as you have the Rush Hour expansion. The sims are very picky about commute times, and while Rush Hour adds a lot of ways to help that out, they still tend to be pretty stupid about choosing the most effective means of transportation. But there's a really excellent mod called NAM (can't remember exactly what it stands for) that fixes all of that. It's really easy to install, and it's very customizable while doing a very good job of explaining what changes each option makes to the game, so it's easy to tailor to your interests. But even without the mod it's still the best of the series except for possibly SC2K.

Everybody biatching about the online requirement CLEARLY have no understanding of this new game. It REQUIRES you to work successfully with your neighbors to advance, although you can be your own neighbor. It really is a multiplayer game, not a single player game with DRM.

Its not SimCity 4 version 2.0.... but it IS a great game, if you bother to open your mind and learn what its all about. You'd actually have to play it, and do so without bias, to understand though.

The server issues do suck.. but hey, what are ya gonna do. They'll fix it.

Alonjar:Everybody biatching about the online requirement CLEARLY have no understanding of this new game. It REQUIRES you to work successfully with your neighbors to advance, although you can be your own neighbor. It really is a multiplayer game, not a single player game with DRM.

Its not SimCity 4 version 2.0.... but it IS a great game, if you bother to open your mind and learn what its all about. You'd actually have to play it, and do so without bias, to understand though.

The server issues do suck.. but hey, what are ya gonna do. They'll fix it.

EA has pulled online support from several games I own, well within the lifetime of the game, often after just a year or two. So no, I don't want to drop $60 on an online-only game that will probably be unplayable (literally, as in you cannot play it) in 2015.

Always-on DRM is not new to technology or the gaming industry, so it's disappointing they can't get it right. Would you buy a car from people who have proven themselves to be royal farkwits time and time again? If they can't get this right, even after having multiple tries, it just speaks to the general levels of incompetence in their organization.

Valve had one major hiccup that I can remember, and that was with Half-Life 2, and they fixed it for their next major release after that. EA has a consistent pattern of failures and anti-consumer policies at this point.

As a fan of SC4 (which was still buggy as hell playing years after release) I was looking forward to hearing more about the new Sim City game when it came out. Now hearing all of this BS about what EA is doing with it, fark it. Not interested anymore. I still haven't forgiven EA for ruining the Command & Conquer franchise.

desertgeek:Does anyone know if it's possible to get a refund after buying the game on Origin because I'm getting really fed up with this server BS.

No, that's the beauty of software. Its one of the few products that you generally can't get a refund for if you don't like it or it doesn't work. That gives shiatty companies like EA license to do whatever they want once they have your money. The only way to teach them otherwise is to not buy their crapware in the 1st place.

As others have said, the bad moves by EA, Bioware, and Ubisoft are making other studios and indie developers some serious face time. Look around there are other great games out there.

The other day I referred to Valve as the "anti-EA". Every thing that EA farks up Valve totally gets right.

I think by now it should be obvious that companies are willing to put up with launch day problems. Why buy capacity for X number of players when they know that they will only need that capacity for the first 2 or 3 days? After that, they'll only need the capacity for X/5 players. Why buy all that extra capacity when they know that in the long run it won't really affect their sales?

SuperChuck:I think by now it should be obvious that companies are willing to put up with launch day problems. Why buy capacity for X number of players when they know that they will only need that capacity for the first 2 or 3 days? After that, they'll only need the capacity for X/5 players. Why buy all that extra capacity when they know that in the long run it won't really affect their sales?

Because it might affect sales of future games. Look at how many people in this thread are referring to the EA logo like the Mark of Cain. Get enough bad press and things can snowball into a real problem.

Klivian:SuperChuck: I think by now it should be obvious that companies are willing to put up with launch day problems. Why buy capacity for X number of players when they know that they will only need that capacity for the first 2 or 3 days? After that, they'll only need the capacity for X/5 players. Why buy all that extra capacity when they know that in the long run it won't really affect their sales?

Because it might affect sales of future games. Look at how many people in this thread are referring to the EA logo like the Mark of Cain. Get enough bad press and things can snowball into a real problem.

Corporate sales mongers are far too focused on the present to worry about the next game. How many times have you seen a company sabotage the future to make or save a few bucks right now?

J. Frank Parnell:I've been playing EA games since the Commodore 64 days, and because of that i've been slow to condemn them for a number of bad moves in the last decade. But this marks the point where i'm going to be all "fark EA" from now on.

I miss the old EA of the c64 days. Seven cities of gold, archon, those games were my staples for a long time.

I see this morning they've now added a timer that tells you the server's busy and when it will next allow you to try to connect. 20 minutes between attempts? Thanks EA, I didn't really have much else going on today anyway...

star_topology:Doubt this thread is still active, but if we had to place odds that EA ever releases an "offline" patch--especially in light of this massive launch failure... where would we put them? 1000:1?

Zero.

The only reason it's online-only to begin with is for DRM and marketing purposes. You really think they're going to give that up just because it completely broke the game and screwed tens if not hundreds of thousands of players for no reason at all?

This will be sorted in a week or two, all the people whining that they can't play will forget about it and they'll just go out and buy whatever the next version of Soma is that EA releases then repeat this all over again.

Game companies have no reason to care about or fix things like this or treat their customers with any respect because they've never been penalized for repeatedly curb-stomping them to begin with.

Klivian:SuperChuck: I think by now it should be obvious that companies are willing to put up with launch day problems. Why buy capacity for X number of players when they know that they will only need that capacity for the first 2 or 3 days? After that, they'll only need the capacity for X/5 players. Why buy all that extra capacity when they know that in the long run it won't really affect their sales?

Because it might affect sales of future games. Look at how many people in this thread are referring to the EA logo like the Mark of Cain. Get enough bad press and things can snowball into a real problem.

Except people are farking dumb, and will STILL buy the next shiny thing and further vote with their wallets. This is what leads to day-one DLC, piecemeal DLC expansions, and shiatty DRM. Remember back in the day when you'd buy a game for $60, then a year later buy an expansion for $30 which was often just as long as the original game? Now you pay $60 for the game and over the next three months another $30 for stuff that was done when the game was release but they left it out so that they could get a bit more money from you via DLC

Right now, between DLCs nickle and diming players and DRM making it a pain in the ass to play, only the paying customer is being raked over the coals. Meanwhile, the pirate has never had a better time or more incentive to pirate.

You know what? I have the game. I have 12 hours played on it now in a region with a friend of mine, and its a great game. Does the server issue right now suck? Yeah, but you know what else? I wasn't some naive fool that thought "Hey, I'm getting a hugely anticipated and marketed online game, I bet I can just log right in on launch day no problem!".

You see folks, a company that invests in enough server capacity to handle 100% of launch day traffic is wasting their money. The initial rough patch of people not being able to get in is preferrable to the huge expense required for all that server capacity. You buy and maintain enough servers to easily handle your expected normal load, because a week or two after launch thats what you'll have.

Anyone that expects a smooth launch day game in this day and age is, to be blunt, a farking idiot or a self entitled troll.

So either play the damned game, or don't. Nobody gives a fark about if you are boycotting the game because you don't like the DRM. We didn't care with Spore, we don't care now. Play the game or don't, its your choice, but for the love of God stop trying convince us all that it sucks when I can assure you from playing the game that no, SimCity is awesome.

skozlaw:star_topology: Doubt this thread is still active, but if we had to place odds that EA ever releases an "offline" patch--especially in light of this massive launch failure... where would we put them? 1000:1?

Zero.

The only reason it's online-only to begin with is for DRM and marketing purposes. You really think they're going to give that up just because it completely broke the game and screwed tens if not hundreds of thousands of players for no reason at all?

This will be sorted in a week or two, all the people whining that they can't play will forget about it and they'll just go out and buy whatever the next version of Soma is that EA releases then repeat this all over again.

Game companies have no reason to care about or fix things like this or treat their customers with any respect because they've never been penalized for repeatedly curb-stomping them to begin with.

You're probably right.

But there's a generation of gamers out there now (Under age... 16, I guess??) that only know this type of behavior as becoming the norm, and will soon grow to accept it. One would hope not... Then us old fogeys will be all "I remember when single player games were actually single player! I didn't need to be online to play them! And get off my lawn!"

Edymnion:You know what? I have the game. I have 12 hours played on it now in a region with a friend of mine, and its a great game. Does the server issue right now suck? Yeah, but you know what else? I wasn't some naive fool that thought "Hey, I'm getting a hugely anticipated and marketed online game, I bet I can just log right in on launch day no problem!".

You see folks, a company that invests in enough server capacity to handle 100% of launch day traffic is wasting their money. The initial rough patch of people not being able to get in is preferrable to the huge expense required for all that server capacity. You buy and maintain enough servers to easily handle your expected normal load, because a week or two after launch thats what you'll have.

Anyone that expects a smooth launch day game in this day and age is, to be blunt, a farking idiot or a self entitled troll.

So either play the damned game, or don't. Nobody gives a fark about if you are boycotting the game because you don't like the DRM. We didn't care with Spore, we don't care now. Play the game or don't, its your choice, but for the love of God stop trying convince us all that it sucks when I can assure you from playing the game that no, SimCity is awesome.

Or a company could rent out some extra servers to handle the burden that comes with launch, and then once the initial traffic boom is over, migrate to other, permanent EA servers. But anticipating demand isn't something we should expect from a company, right?

star_topology:But there's a generation of gamers out there now (Under age... 16, I guess??) that only know this type of behavior as becoming the norm, and will soon grow to accept it. One would hope not... Then us old fogeys will be all "I remember when single player games were actually single player! I didn't need to be online to play them! And get off my lawn!"

It scares me.

Really, how is that any different from saying "Us old fogeys will be all 'I remember when a phone was just a phone! All it did was let you call other people to talk to them with your voice! We didn't need none of this text messaging or built in web browsers, now get off my lawn!". And before that we had the "Back in my day, you had to find a phone booth if you wanted to make a call, and you had to put a quarter in it to make it work, and we were fine with that! Now all you kids have your cell phones and you don't know what its like to be able to just get away from someone being able to call you whenever they want, get off my lawn!".

And before that was the telegram, and the pony express, and the "In Ugg day, Ugg use rock to bash dinosaur. Ugg no need spear, rock good enough. Ugg scared you think spear and fire good things, you no appreciate good rock no more."

Klivian:Or a company could rent out some extra servers to handle the burden that comes with launch, and then once the initial traffic boom is over, migrate to other, permanent EA servers. But anticipating demand isn't something we should expect from a company, right?

So you're saying they should rent out servers, let people accumulate massive amounts of user data on those servers, then migrate all that data to another server while trying to educate people that the server they told everyone they were on no longer exists?

For a problem that will solve itself in a couple of days?

Dude, remember what I said about being self entitled? Just wait a couple of days and it will all be fine. You don't have to have everything perfect right freaking now. The game is good, the game is complete, there are just server load issues. Thats to be expected.

Edymnion:star_topology: But there's a generation of gamers out there now (Under age... 16, I guess??) that only know this type of behavior as becoming the norm, and will soon grow to accept it. One would hope not... Then us old fogeys will be all "I remember when single player games were actually single player! I didn't need to be online to play them! And get off my lawn!"

It scares me.

Really, how is that any different from saying "Us old fogeys will be all 'I remember when a phone was just a phone! All it did was let you call other people to talk to them with your voice! We didn't need none of this text messaging or built in web browsers, now get off my lawn!". And before that we had the "Back in my day, you had to find a phone booth if you wanted to make a call, and you had to put a quarter in it to make it work, and we were fine with that! Now all you kids have your cell phones and you don't know what its like to be able to just get away from someone being able to call you whenever they want, get off my lawn!".

And before that was the telegram, and the pony express, and the "In Ugg day, Ugg use rock to bash dinosaur. Ugg no need spear, rock good enough. Ugg scared you think spear and fire good things, you no appreciate good rock no more."

Because those are improvements upon existing technology.

The proper analogy in this case would be someone adding a slot that you have to put quarters in before you can make a call on your iPhone

Edymnion:Klivian: Or a company could rent out some extra servers to handle the burden that comes with launch, and then once the initial traffic boom is over, migrate to other, permanent EA servers. But anticipating demand isn't something we should expect from a company, right?

So you're saying they should rent out servers, let people accumulate massive amounts of user data on those servers, then migrate all that data to another server while trying to educate people that the server they told everyone they were on no longer exists?

For a problem that will solve itself in a couple of days?

Dude, remember what I said about being self entitled? Just wait a couple of days and it will all be fine. You don't have to have everything perfect right freaking now. The game is good, the game is complete, there are just server load issues. Thats to be expected.

Guess what, don't have the game, not gonna get it. Didn't get Diablo III either, because the wireless in my apartment sucks, and drops at random intervals, meaning if I tried to play either, I'd be screwed.

But guess what? Sales figures are affected by word of mouth, and it works both ways. People hear a game is good, they might be more inclined to pick it up. People hear it's bad? They might not buy it? People hear it's bad and flagrantly flipping off the customer base? They might stop buying that company's product.

It was entirely in EA's best interest, in the long and short term, to have the launch go smoothly. Don't even try and argue that.

Edymnion:Klivian: Or a company could rent out some extra servers to handle the burden that comes with launch, and then once the initial traffic boom is over, migrate to other, permanent EA servers. But anticipating demand isn't something we should expect from a company, right?

So you're saying they should rent out servers, let people accumulate massive amounts of user data on those servers, then migrate all that data to another server while trying to educate people that the server they told everyone they were on no longer exists?

For a problem that will solve itself in a couple of days?

Dude, remember what I said about being self entitled? Just wait a couple of days and it will all be fine. You don't have to have everything perfect right freaking now. The game is good, the game is complete, there are just server load issues. Thats to be expected.

How long have you worked for EA? Self-entitled? Yes, I guess paying money for a product and expecting that product to work does make me self-entitled with regards to that product. It's been a "couple of days" and it's not all fine. Did EA "wait a couple of days" to process my payment?

Your attitude is why we have these kinds of products in the first place.

Edymnion:Really, how is that any different from saying "Us old fogeys will be all 'I remember when a phone was just a phone!

My phone is still a phone and it still makes phone calls despite the add-ons. Sim City, on the other hand, isn't currently being a game because of the add-ons.

This isn't a matter of people being annoyed at the progression of technology, it's a matter of people being annoyed because a company made a fundamentally selfish design decision that, in the best possible outcome, could have no negative impact on the gamer. And, as we see now and have seen repeatedly, the most likely outcome is that it renders the game completely unusable.

I'm not willing to pay $60 for a game I only intend to play by myself that requires me to be online. I'm not willing to fork over the money so that the game can be yanked out from under me on a whim or rendered unusable every time either end of the internet connection has a problem. It makes no sense and, as far as I'm concerned, they're just holding up intentionally broken merchandise. I don't buy broken merchandise.

The proper analogy in this case would be someone adding a slot that you have to put quarters in before you can make a call on your iPhone

Funny, I'm one of the rare people around that still keep an old "plug the cord into the wall" landline phones. I have a smartphone, but you know what? If my power goes out, the landline still works. I've been through blackouts that lasted for days, which means my iphone would have a dead battery and I'd have no way to contact anyone short of driving to their house. I don't consider cell phones to be superior technology in that regard, but they have other advantages.

The always online game is much like the cell phone. It has limitations that the older single player games didn't have, just like my cell has limitations my old landline doesn't. But the advantages it brings outweigh the drawbacks. If you haven't actually PLAYED the new SimCity, then you are essentially just trolling. If you haven't played it, you don't understand the benefits it gives you, you don't understand the limitations, you're just waving your arms in the air about the sky falling. "Its always been this way, and it should always be this way!" is never a valid reason.

Edymnion:star_topology: But there's a generation of gamers out there now (Under age... 16, I guess??) that only know this type of behavior as becoming the norm, and will soon grow to accept it. One would hope not... Then us old fogeys will be all "I remember when single player games were actually single player! I didn't need to be online to play them! And get off my lawn!"

It scares me.

Really, how is that any different from saying "Us old fogeys will be all 'I remember when a phone was just a phone! All it did was let you call other people to talk to them with your voice! We didn't need none of this text messaging or built in web browsers, now get off my lawn!". And before that we had the "Back in my day, you had to find a phone booth if you wanted to make a call, and you had to put a quarter in it to make it work, and we were fine with that! Now all you kids have your cell phones and you don't know what its like to be able to just get away from someone being able to call you whenever they want, get off my lawn!".

And before that was the telegram, and the pony express, and the "In Ugg day, Ugg use rock to bash dinosaur. Ugg no need spear, rock good enough. Ugg scared you think spear and fire good things, you no appreciate good rock no more."

My point, and perhaps I didn't explain it well enough (That's a "me" problem sometimes) is that what EA is doing is an *IMPROVEMENT*

Edymnion:Klivian: Because those are improvements upon existing technology.

The proper analogy in this case would be someone adding a slot that you have to put quarters in before you can make a call on your iPhone

Funny, I'm one of the rare people around that still keep an old "plug the cord into the wall" landline phones. I have a smartphone, but you know what? If my power goes out, the landline still works. I've been through blackouts that lasted for days, which means my iphone would have a dead battery and I'd have no way to contact anyone short of driving to their house. I don't consider cell phones to be superior technology in that regard, but they have other advantages.

The always online game is much like the cell phone. It has limitations that the older single player games didn't have, just like my cell has limitations my old landline doesn't. But the advantages it brings outweigh the drawbacks. If you haven't actually PLAYED the new SimCity, then you are essentially just trolling. If you haven't played it, you don't understand the benefits it gives you, you don't understand the limitations, you're just waving your arms in the air about the sky falling. "Its always been this way, and it should always be this way!" is never a valid reason.

Go ahead and keep ignoring my point. I have not once mentioned the gameplay, because as I've mentioned, I'll never play it because of my spotty connection. We could be talking about any commercial product and the point would be the same. This might be the best SimCity, heck, even the best video game EVER, but it doesn't matter because EA failed to anticipate the heavy server load and take appropriate action.

If I have a lemonade stand, and it sells the best lemonade ever made, it doesn't matter if I don't stock enough sugar to keep making more. And the problem is is that EA's lemonade stand has already collected the money, and only handed people an empty cup so far.

star_topology:Edymnion: star_topology: But there's a generation of gamers out there now (Under age... 16, I guess??) that only know this type of behavior as becoming the norm, and will soon grow to accept it. One would hope not... Then us old fogeys will be all "I remember when single player games were actually single player! I didn't need to be online to play them! And get off my lawn!"

It scares me.

Really, how is that any different from saying "Us old fogeys will be all 'I remember when a phone was just a phone! All it did was let you call other people to talk to them with your voice! We didn't need none of this text messaging or built in web browsers, now get off my lawn!". And before that we had the "Back in my day, you had to find a phone booth if you wanted to make a call, and you had to put a quarter in it to make it work, and we were fine with that! Now all you kids have your cell phones and you don't know what its like to be able to just get away from someone being able to call you whenever they want, get off my lawn!".

And before that was the telegram, and the pony express, and the "In Ugg day, Ugg use rock to bash dinosaur. Ugg no need spear, rock good enough. Ugg scared you think spear and fire good things, you no appreciate good rock no more."

My point, and perhaps I didn't explain it well enough (That's a "me" problem sometimes) is that what EA is doing is going to be viewed asan *IMPROVEMENT*

I am not ignoring your point, I am disagreeing with the fundamental principle your point is built on.

1) The majority of people that buy brand new PC games on launch day have broadband. They are always connected at all times anyway.2) They did anticipate the heavy server load at launch, they simply chose the most financially sound way to deal with it, namely ignore it because it is such a short term blip. Just because you personally do not agree with that decision does not mean they failed to anticipate it.3) A spotty connection will not stop you from playing SimCity. The game is asynchronous, as long as you have an internet connection every 5 minutes or so, you can play it just fine.4) If you have not played it, and have no intention of playing it, your opinion on the game is invalid. You can do nothing but parrot what other people tell you, because you have no first hand experience in what you're talking about.

Edymnion:Klivian: Because those are improvements upon existing technology.

The proper analogy in this case would be someone adding a slot that you have to put quarters in before you can make a call on your iPhone

Funny, I'm one of the rare people around that still keep an old "plug the cord into the wall" landline phones. I have a smartphone, but you know what? If my power goes out, the landline still works. I've been through blackouts that lasted for days, which means my iphone would have a dead battery and I'd have no way to contact anyone short of driving to their house. I don't consider cell phones to be superior technology in that regard, but they have other advantages.

The always online game is much like the cell phone. It has limitations that the older single player games didn't have, just like my cell has limitations my old landline doesn't. But the advantages it brings outweigh the drawbacks. If you haven't actually PLAYED the new SimCity, then you are essentially just trolling. If you haven't played it, you don't understand the benefits it gives you, you don't understand the limitations, you're just waving your arms in the air about the sky falling. "Its always been this way, and it should always be this way!" is never a valid reason.

As gamers, we aren't waving our arms in the air crying about how the sky is falling and "It's always been this way, and it should always be this way". What we are complaining about is removal of what used to be staples and telling us it's a "premium" product.

Battlefield 1942 - You could control planes, tanks, aircraft carriers, submarines, bombers, all on large maps for 64 players. 16 maps in vanilla.

Battlefield 2 - You could control planes, tanks and bombers (4 jets, 3 bombers), all on large maps. 12 maps in vanilla.

Battlefield 3 - You could control planes (4 jets) and tanks on fully destructible maps. 9 maps in vanilla. Maps are noticeably smaller than other installments.

See, the progression is removing features that made the originals great, while telling us it's "better". Don't get me wrong I love saving games in "the cloud" that I can play on my desktop or laptop and not have to worry about which game is where depending on the computer. However, I like the ability to "save scum" my SimCity games, or play offline (When I go on vacation in Wyoming, where I specifically do not have internet access, to get away from e-mail and work).

I fully expect Battlefield 4 to be limited to 32 people on small 1km by 1km maps, because nobody wants to play 64 players on 4km by 4km maps. Fark EA, they're pissing on us and telling us it's raining.

I am not ignoring your point, I am disagreeing with the fundamental principle your point is built on.

1) The majority of people that buy brand new PC games on launch day have broadband. They are always connected at all times anyway.2) They did anticipate the heavy server load at launch, they simply chose the most financially sound way to deal with it, namely ignore it because it is such a short term blip. Just because you personally do not agree with that decision does not mean they failed to anticipate it.3) A spotty connection will not stop you from playing SimCity. The game is asynchronous, as long as you have an internet connection every 5 minutes or so, you can play it just fine.4) If you have not played it, and have no intention of playing it, your opinion on the game is invalid. You can do nothing but parrot what other people tell you, because you have no first hand experience in what you're talking about.

Alright, since you insist on arguing against points I'm not making, this will be my last comment to you.

1) Citation farking needed2) How is this the most financially sound decision? It hurts sales in the short and long term. Don't want to rent servers? Buy extra, use them for now, migrate when demand decreases, then use extras for next game you release.3) Did not know that. I concede that point to you.4) Show me one farking post in this thread where I talked about the gameplay. All I have done is discuss EA's lack of foresight.

I managed to play about an hour last night (after 1/2 hour of trying to log on).

The game was pretty great, I loved the population analytical maps. I don't mind that the scale is so small, the goal is not to build the biggest city but to build efficiently. So obviously I suck.

Anyway, I'm sure it'll probably be another day or two before I get a chance to play again (not without trying). Still, I will be able to withhold my rage since I had a taste and now I know that the game is fun enough to be worth the wait.

Edymnion:star_topology: But there's a generation of gamers out there now (Under age... 16, I guess??) that only know this type of behavior as becoming the norm, and will soon grow to accept it. One would hope not... Then us old fogeys will be all "I remember when single player games were actually single player! I didn't need to be online to play them! And get off my lawn!"

It scares me.

Really, how is that any different from saying "Us old fogeys will be all 'I remember when a phone was just a phone! All it did was let you call other people to talk to them with your voice! We didn't need none of this text messaging or built in web browsers, now get off my lawn!". And before that we had the "Back in my day, you had to find a phone booth if you wanted to make a call, and you had to put a quarter in it to make it work, and we were fine with that! Now all you kids have your cell phones and you don't know what its like to be able to just get away from someone being able to call you whenever they want, get off my lawn!".

And before that was the telegram, and the pony express, and the "In Ugg day, Ugg use rock to bash dinosaur. Ugg no need spear, rock good enough. Ugg scared you think spear and fire good things, you no appreciate good rock no more."

More like "these are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the net with guns. These AIs we wasted today here are the finest players we'll ever know. After we rotate back to the world we're gonna miss not having anyone around worth shooting."

"On June 24, 2009, EA announced and formalized a change in its approach to preventing piracy of PC games. The company plans to drop all DRM from its games, replacing it with a traditional CD-key check."

The Banana Thug:log_jammin: Barry McCackiner: Who cares who publishes a game?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#Criticism

From the link:

"On June 24, 2009, EA announced and formalized a change in its approach to preventing piracy of PC games. The company plans to drop all DRM from its games, replacing it with a traditional CD-key check."

What?

Well, they're still planning it. We are talking about EA after all, so these things take a bit of time. You must have patience.